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Senate committee to work on CHIP renewal next month

The Senate Finance Committee will hold a hearing in September on reauthorizing the Children's Health Insurance Program, committee chairman Orrin Hatch announced this morning. That's a pretty tight timeline, considering that the program has to be renewed by Sept. 30 so the funding doesn't expire.

Why it matters: The reauthorization of CHIP is one example of the urgent health care priorities that got shoved to the side while Congress was tied up with the failed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Now, it will have just a month to renew the funding for a program that covers more than 8 million low-income children — and there's no guarantee that senators won't try to attach controversial amendments that could bog it down.

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